Peggy Conntosh White Privilege Analysis

Not so Typical I was chatting with some friends of mine about this paper. They were all very concerned about how I was going to write an in-depth paper about race and gender and how it shapes my life experiences. They said things like “Julia, you are a middle-upper class, white girl from small town Iowa how are you going to write anything for this paper?” or “You are a typical college girl from one of the whitest counties in America, there is no way you are going to write a good paper, right?” Wrong. I believe there is nothing typical or standard about any human being in the World. Every individual has experienced events that are misfortunes, discriminations, triumphs or privileges, those events have molded that individual’s life in some way. We are brought to these events by our …show more content…
The population of Osage is about 98% Caucasian. They knew that their children were not going to have much exposure to diversity. Growing up there is no doubt that I took my race for granted. Looking back this would be a good time to identify white privilege. In Peggy McIntosh’s piece: “White Privilege” she says it is important for everyone to identify our privileges. I had the opportunity to be in the company of people of my own race. As a small child I was oblivious to discrimination and racism. I didn’t have one person of color in my classroom. Although racial segregation has decreased in the resent years there are still many cities have populations that are dominant towards one race. As Matthew Desmond claims in his piece “What is Racial Domination?” racial categories are place-specific. My town was predominantly white which made it hard for me to relate to the struggles of discrimination that people of color face. I was able to recognize the struggle of poor white families. But, I could not look at a poor black person because I have never witnessed discrimination among people of